Clean Up Your Kitchen with Cork!

Cork squares, that is!  A few years ago, our family installed a new refrigerator with a wooden front that matched our kitchen cabinets.  I loved the new look, but lost our family’s magnetic message center that was on the front of our old fridge! 

The solution I came up with made me really happy!  I bought small squares of cork at my local home improvement store and installed them with a glue gun inside the doors of one my cabinets (two sided foam tape squares didn’t hold!). There was actually a small recessed area on the inside of the cabinet doors that created a “frame” for the cork squares.  I glued the squares all the way up to the top of the door for maximum storage space.  I chose the cabinet that was above the counter where I keep my telephone – this just seemed to make the most sense!

Items to Hang on Your Corkboards

Some of the items that I hang on these squares include: 

• sports schedules
• invitations
• a school calendar
• tickets for upcoming events and a list of emergency phone numbers

I’d recommend installing these cork squares even if you have a metal refrigerator – you can clean up your fridge and eliminate at least one area of clutter!  (Note:  Depending on the thickness of the cork squares that you buy, you may need to double up the squares in order to have them thick enough for push pins.)

So, now that you’ve decided to follow this tip, reward yourself with some cute push pins! You’d be surprised at what’s available!

• If you’d like to buy your push pins, check out ballarddesigns.com. This site offers designs such as sea life, fruit, cameos, bonne chance (horseshoes and four leaf clovers!) and very cool European cities. (between $15 and $19/24 pins, pictured at top of page) 
• If you are interested in crafting your own push pins, check out Better Homes and Gardens’ website and view their instructions for assembling decorative push pins.  With a little bit of effort, plain plastic push pins can be embellished with small sea shells, rhinestone buttons, metal charms and more!

Try out this tip and be rewarded every time you open your cabinet doors!

Tags: organizing kitchen papers, clearing clutter, organize paperwork, paper, organizing invitations, creatively using cork to organize paper